Investigating the Moderating Effect of Business Strategy on the Relationship between Fraudulent Financial Reporting and Sustainability

 The type of business strategy chosen can affect all aspects and reports of the company. The purpose of this research is to investigate the moderating effect of cost leadership, differentiation, defensive and offensive business strategies on the relationship between fraudulent financial reporting and sustainability reporting.

 The current research is an applied research in terms of the goal, and since we seek to discover the relationship between variables, it is classified in the descriptive-correlation research group. The statistical sample of the research includes 1.012 companies -year. To collect data, independent auditor's report, board of directors, management commentary, financial statements and explanatory notes and Kodal website were used.

 The research results indicate that the relationship between fraudulent financial reporting and sustainability is strengthened by the adjustment variable of business strategies. That is, fraudulent financial reporting and sustainability in companies following cost leadership business strategy are less than companies following differentiation strategy. It should be noted that companies following a defensive business strategy have fraudulent financial reporting and less stability than companies following an aggressive business strategy.

 Although both business strategies of Porter (1980) and Miles and Snow (1978) are in the same direction in classifying the strategy adopted by companies, but the business strategy of Miles and Snow (1978), (defensive and offensive) has a higher classification power and it shows the type of strategy adopted by the company better.

Contribution:

 Users of financial and sustainability reports of the companies can learn about the possibility of fraudulent reporting according to the type of business strategy adopted by the companies, which is a special knowledge contribution to this research. Also, this research opens a new chapter in sustainability research by proving the effect of business strategy on the relationship between fraudulent reporting and sustainability reporting.